The animated shorts looked interesting, and I did wonder what was up with the crazy lady grabbing the mike. Her complaint that the film focused on one character -- who you could see at the back of the auditorium -- is irrational for a film telling a story, especially a short film.

Althouse may pay attention to these shorts if one of them told the story of black prisoners on Robben Island being forced to wear shorts because these truncated trousers are the symbol of an inferior man.

Actually, it was an intriguing moment. The clip from the film showed a woman in a wheelchair singing quite powerfully; I wanted to hear more. Then this man came out and began speaking in an accent that was hard to place. South African? Not quite. Then this large, aggressive woman appeared and talked over him and nearly shoved him out of the spotlight. The end result was "WTF??" and more curiosity about the film than you would otherwise have felt.

I often wonder how/where you can see the shorts and animated shorts that you get such (sometimes) tantalizing glimpses of on the Oscars.

I happened to be watching when this happened - it was quite odd. He was in mid-sentence and this crazy women shows up demanding to speak. He had both a look of being taken aback but also, oddly, knowing her. It seemed like some kind of streaker-moment and I really expected some security type to grab her and take her off stage (just a fast as she had shown up). Eventually, the telecast went to a long shot and turned off the mic. It was about the only thing all night that didn't seem scripted...

Same here, c3. I easily figured it was one of the producers, since there was a second name on the screen (otherwise, she probably would've been tackled by security before even getting up on stage), but I actually thought she was just interposing herself because the man was coming off really humble and that she was trying to put an exclaimation point on what the movie itself was all about. I further thought Williams was okay with it because he was smiling the whole time. Heck, I even misinterpreted - or rather, underestimated - his mom's reaction as being nothing more than someone stealing some of her son's spotlight. I had no clue there was all that behind it.

In Greek mythology, a harpy ("snatcher", from Latin: harpeia, originating in Greek: ἅρπυια, harpūia) was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineas. The literal meaning of the word seems to be "that which snatches" as it comes from the ancient Greek word harpazein (ἁρπάζειν), which means "to snatch".